Mom doesn't think I have AS?

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You said "This." You're from a tumblr, too, aren't ya.

I swear, for a second I thought I wrote this post a long time ago, seeing only the title.

Ok I think that's the major gist of your post that you need to understand in other people. It doesn't matter what you are or how you feel, people judge you at face value and therefore attribute any qualities they think are reflective of the traits you exhibit during the time they are exposed to you.

You basically have three choices;

1. Accept any label that is given to you and advertise this to people upfront
2. Accept the label that is given to you but don't draw attention to it.
3. Take time to consider whether at your age does a formal diagnosis of AS improve your life in a NT social environment? When you realise there is no therapy/drugs to help AS then do the correct thing and ditch the label.

Oh wow! That sounds just like my mom. She still thinks I am just "gifted". Well my advice is to just get tested.

But many of us don't! That's the point!

Let me give you two scenarios and you tell me the outcome......
- first a guy walks into a job interview, he avoids eye contact and when he speaks he tends to mumble shyly and in order to overcome this he blurts a sentence quickly and loudly like there is some type of urgency. Deep down he knows the panel won't give him the job even though he is overqualified, He then tells the panel that he was recently diagnosed with AS. What do you think the panel will say?

- the same guy is invited to a party where there are lots of talkative extroverted NTs, He sits in a corner with a soft drink in his hand while watching nervously as the party goes in full swing and everyone is getting a bit tipsy. A couple of girls come up to him and ask him why he isn't joining the rest of the group? He then tells the girls he was recently diagnosed with AS, what do you think people will think of him at the party?

In both cases he had the option not to mention his condition. So does telling people your diagnosis actually improve your life in the NT world? this is the question....

There has to be a situational context to get tested. If you are school aged then yes. Without a diagnosis my daughter could not draw on support such an integration aide.

If you are in your late 30s or 40s and have a job and have a partner then getting a diagnosis is pointless.

@OP: In all honesty, I really don't see much of what you wrote standing out as autistic. You just seem sensitive and intelligent to me. If your parents are doctors and seeing you as normal, that might be a good indication that you are. People who have high IQ's are likely to be more sensitive than people with average IQ's, and they're likely to make wise decisions for themselves rather than to join the crowd and drink away their college education.

You not wanting to be around the partying and loud music that you choose not to partake in is 100% normal! It is just your personality and the way you are.

Similarly, feeling different than a lot of others is also nothing to be worried about if you have a good reason to be. I'm not trying to give you a license to be arrogant, but think of yourself as more intelligent than the people in the groups you dislike. You are different than them because there is not much room for either of you to relate to each other.

Hi, generally agree with your post, however;

I can introduce you to a class of law students at Melbourne University who are highly extroverted, heavy drinking and boisterous and scored straight scores of 95% + to get into law school. Be careful not to confuse personality with IQ.

That's what my parents seem to think also. I talked to my mother again, and I'm going to see the doctor who diagnosed me with my LD (processing disorder). When my mom talked to the doctor, he said that I might have ADD also, but that I probably don't have Asperger's Syndrome.

However, I do need to emphasize the fact that I haven't had friends in a very long time (five years). In social situations I am awkward, and I usually don't know what's going on (maybe that's my processing disorder and ADD, though). It's not that I don't want to have friends, either. I have made an effort.

I'm actually grateful that my mother's been so supportive, and I hope that either way I can have answers. I guess I am seeking some label, if only so that I can do whatever I can to improve my social skills for sophomore year (and hopefully make some friends). I don't want to suddenly decide to party because god knows THAT wouldn't work, but I do want to see if I can at least socialize without coming off as too totally awkward.

That's what my parents seem to think also. I talked to my mother again, and I'm going to see the doctor who diagnosed me with my LD (processing disorder). When my mom talked to the doctor, he said that I might have ADD also, but that I probably don't have Asperger's Syndrome.

However, I do need to emphasize the fact that I haven't had friends in a very long time (five years). In social situations I am awkward, and I usually don't know what's going on (maybe that's my processing disorder and ADD, though). It's not that I don't want to have friends, either. I have made an effort.

I'm actually grateful that my mother's been so supportive, and I hope that either way I can have answers. I guess I am seeking some label, if only so that I can do whatever I can to improve my social skills for sophomore year (and hopefully make some friends). I don't want to change myself or suddenly decide to party because god knows THAT wouldn't work, but I do want to see if I can at least socialize without coming off as too totally awkward.

Yep, there's wide variation in personality for all levels of IQ.

However, the likelihood and severity of introvertive traits increases, on average, in the population with increasing IQ levels such that I think 3/4ths of highly gifted individuals are considered "introverted". Of course, it's the extroverted high IQ types that tend to do best in life, so it's funny where personality / trait correlations tend to point.

This could also be a self fulfilling prophecy. If bright students are forced to hide in the library at school because of bullying then they will accentuate their introversion. Of course a number of private schools promote and encourage leadership skills in high IQ bright kids and groom them to become alphas.

I wouldn't want to gainsay your doctor or your mother, but I think I have a few things you could think about to determine if you're AS. I'm the same age as you, in college second year, above average intelligence, so maybe some of this will be helpful to you. Granted, I'm just a self-suspected Aspie, so take my words as you will.

One of the major things that made me think seriously about AS was understanding where my social troubles originated from. All my life I've been told I was shy, but in reality I'm really not. Don't get me wrong, there are situations in which I can be socially anxious. Situations where I don't know what exactly I'm supposed to be doing, new situations, and situations where I'm trying to impress people can all give me social anxiety. However, in ordinary conversations where this social anxiety is not present, I still experience social difficulties. I face extreme difficulties in understanding how to comfort someone. I want to "solve the problem." I don't know how to say the right thing. I often come off as cold and distant without realizing it. It takes me time to think through my response in a discussion, so that often I miss my opportunity to speak. In restaurants, especially with groups of people, it is extremely difficult for me to keep up with even a single conversation. I miss the subtext in conversations or the double-meanings of words. I can't tell when someone's "fishing" for information. My conversation style is very me-centered. When a person tells me something, I think that the appropriate response is to try to relate it to my own experience to show I understand. I am recently learning that in reality this comes off as me being a selfish conversationist. Directions are insanely difficult to follow unless clearly spelled out step-by-step; this goes for directions to the store, directions for running errands, school work, etc.

Granted, these are just things that from my own research I have attributed to my possible Asperger's. But if any of this sounds familiar, I think it would definitely be within your interests to look more deeply into the social deficits that people on the spectrum face. I wouldn't completely discount the possibility that you may not be representing your social difficulties clearly enough to your therapist for him/her to understand the root of your problems. Again, though, you need to be very honest with yourself. If your therapist thinks you don't have AS, chances are they know more than I do. If your social problems come from the anxiety you feel when in a social situation, even if it is mild anxiety, chances are that AS is unlikely. Find the root of your social problems.

Another thing you might want to look into is the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test found HERE. This was an incredibly eye-opening test for me. (Ahaha, pun.) But my score wasn't what was so significant to me. I made my younger sister and a couple of her friends take this test as well. Firstly, there was a radical difference in our scores. Secondly, I got to learn (thanks to my sister's habit of thinking aloud) how my sister viewed the test. We looked at things very differently. I would look at the picture and immediately start judging the slant of the eyebrows. I'd think to myself "OK, this one is probably smiling" or "Definitely not smiling." Then I'd take a look at the possible answers and be blown away. Don't get me wrong, my sister had her own difficulties with the test, but the key was the way that she looked at them. For each picture, she had a story. This one was a creeper who was up to something nasty, that one was fantasizing about the hot, shirtless guy across the street. For her, the pictures were more than just smiling or not smiling, they had an emotional life that was far beyond anything I could read in them. If you are similar to me in your results, this indicates difficulty with understanding non-verbal communication.

One of the difficult areas to understand for me was Aspies and literal interpretation of language. I am a major bookworm. I do not get stumbled and think that people are actually calling me a worm when they call me a bookworm. I have mastered the meaning of most idioms, therefore I have no difficulties with understanding figurative language, right? Maybe not, as it turns out. Two of the big indicators that I had difficulty with this was first my 12th grade English class. I am all over Monty Python, so my English teacher thought I was just being a perfectionist when I came to her asking for help understanding irony. It was really a strange moment for me. I would have never admitted before that moment that I had trouble understanding irony. I laughed when things were ironic. I knew ironic. But when asked to sit down and point out instances of irony, I simply couldn't do it. I could parrot you the definition, but... It's hard to explain. It was like some kind of horrible mental block, one that I still have in my English classes today.

The second thing that convinced me I have consistently had a problem with figurative language all my life is something your parents might be taking completely for granted, just like mine do. Think back to funny stories your parents tell about when you were little. For instance, when I was little I once put our pet cat in the fridge so it could "chill out." A while later I cut off a piece of my bangs and a piece of my pj's, taped them to a piece of paper, and presented it to my mom so she "could have a little piece of me to remember me by." Another good example from when I'm a bit older (8th grade) is when I wanted to make friends with a girl in my class. I asked my mom how and she told me "Just say hello to her every day." Golly! I thought, if somebody had only told me it was so easy before! For the next couple of weeks (maybe even months!) I would walk up to the girl when she was at her locker, fire off a quick hello, and then carry on my way feeling all self-satisfied because I was making friends! It wasn't until the girl turned one day and exploded in my face, telling me how annoying I was and how she just wanted me to leave her alone, that I realized things weren't going as planned. : ( It never occurred to me that my mother meant for me to start a conversation with her in the morning, not just say hello. Or that I was annoying the girl.

Finally, I think it's maybe worth mentioning (though I freely admit I know very little about processing disorders) that your LD sounds like it might be similar to some of the sensory issues people with AS typically have.

Anyway, I'm just in a similar boat to yours, so I thought I'd drop my two cents in. I wonder a lot too if maybe I'm just intelligent and overexerting/misunderstanding my own problems. Hope it helps!

I have a mom who is an occupational therapist and has worked with autistic children. When I explained to her that I had been diagnosed with Asperger's, she told me that she thought it wasn't possible, that I couldn't possibly be autistic. She also went on exactly the way your mom did--"Everybody goes through that; everybody's sensitive to things, everybody has trouble understanding other people; everybody has tantrums; sometimes you just have to relax; I don't like parties either..." etc. What I had been going through as a child was apparently quite normal to her.

I've now had the aforementioned ASD diagnosis confirmed by several psychologists and a neuropsych evaluation (they differ on the specific autism spectrum disorder but all agree it's autism), but my mom still doesn't agree with them. And she's worked with autistic children--she should know. Or should she?

The way I figure it, my mom has three big handicaps to understanding that I'm autistic.
1. She's my mom and I'm her firstborn. That means that she didn't have a non-autistic child to compare me to when I was growing up. She figured I was normal and just strong-willed.
2. She's related to me. I.e., we share DNA. Including autistic DNA. That means that she has autistic traits herself--in my opinion, strong enough for diagnosis, in fact--and that when she sees autism in me, she compares it to herself and comes up with, "Well, I have trouble with that too. It must be normal."
3. She's an occupational therapist and her clients were special ed kids. Their autism was so obvious that anybody could see it; in some cases they were completely nonverbal. What she doesn't realize is that the kids she works with are the ones who absolutely, positively, cannot be educated in a mainstream classroom, thanks to the "least restrictive environment" rule--most autistics can be mainstreamed. Not just that, but they are the ones who need an occupational therapist's services--and the typical things she teaches, as an OT, are the ADLs, like dressing, eating, or doing other similar tasks. So when she sees autism, she sees the maybe one-in-fifty autistic kids who still need help with ADLs in middle school. She doesn't realize that the rest of the spectrum is made of much less obvious cases.

That my mom missed it for years is actually a lot more understandable than it seems. She knew, when I was about eleven years old (when AS was put into the DSM and autism was expanded to include people without obvious speech delays), that I could be diagnosed; but she didn't want me "labeled", what I was doing seemed pretty normal to her, and anyway, I wasn't like THOSE autistic kids over there. So she put it down to a fad diagnosis and a child who was simply rebellious and didn't want to do things that she was "obviously" capable of doing, and I remained undiagnosed until I landed in the hospital as an adult after a complete burnout. (Ironically, some of the things I was "obviously" capable of doing were the very same ADLs she was teaching to her special ed kids. But because I was an early talker and a good student, I was obviously too smart not to have learned those things, so she figured I must be refusing out of rebellion.)

That is the exact same reason I insisted my mother would be exlcuded from any interaction with the doctor that made my diagnosis. I just knew she would be biased, because she was really, really angry at me that I even considered going to see a psychiatrist, because for her, it was simply impossible that my Asperger's syndrome went under her unfailable radar (she is an elementary school teacher and has made a lot of advanced training how to spot mental disorders in children). My guess would be that she does not believe you have AS because she does not WANT you to have AS. I guess parents feel responsible for raising "perfectly normal children".

I empathize with you. My mom has a job where she works with children with disabilities, and she doesn't think I have AS. Most of her patients are boys as well, but she does have girls too. She admits that I have AS "traits", but can't stop comparing me to her patients.

I'm sorry that you aren't getting the support you want from your mom, but as a legal adult, you can take care of diagnosis/etc on your own. First think of why you would want a diagnosis, how or if it could be beneficial, etc. Think about if you want the label of Aspergers on your records. Getting a professional diagnosis is nice if you're just looking for an answer, but I don't think (most) people's lives change just because of the diagnosis. You have to pinpoint what you want to work on and such and then go from there.

If you ever want to, feel free to PM me, as I'm dealing/dealt with a similar situation to you :]